The disclosure herein pertains generally to the field of computer networks. In a network, nodes interconnected by links can learn paths from various sources to various destinations over time. As these nodes learn such paths, the nodes can update internally stored tables in order to specify, for a data packet having a particular destination, the port on which that data packet should be forwarded. When a link fails after such paths have been learned, at least some paths may need to be re-learned in order to compensate for the fact that paths containing the failed link are no longer viable; alternative paths will need to be learned in those cases.
The re-learning of paths following link failure can take a substantial amount of time, which is detrimental to the data-path switching performance within the network. Fortunately, the configuration of nodes using a protocol called Ethernet Ring Protection (ERP) protocol can somewhat simplify and quicken the re-learning process by confining relearning only over ring nodes of one ring. Unfortunately, configuring nodes to use ERP has traditionally been a manual task that can be time-intensive and error-prone, especially when a network contains many nodes configured with many VLANs. The configuration typically requires a human being to identify rings within the network topology manually, and to designate certain nodes and ports within each ring manually. When a vlan port membership changes after addition or removal or shuffle of network devices, this usually means that a human being will need to manually identify rings again and modify existing ERP configuration over affected network nodes. If a big VLAN topology changes with great frequency, the resulting frequent manual analysis and re-configuration in response to every single vlan-port membership change can become burdensome for a person to perform. It also increases the probability of manual misconfiguration which adversely affects data traffic.